A brief guide to delegating Steem Power

Reasons for delegating SP

With Hardfork 18 came a very interesting feature - the ability to Delegate Steem Power to another account. This has several benefits -

1. Creating accounts with a lower fee.
2. Donating your SP to curators you trust.
3. Combining your SP from different accounts to a single voting account.

For most of us, it'll be 2. and 3. which are interesting. It allows whales to directly delegate SP to trusted curators, hence spreading influence far and wide. I fully expect this to become a trend once the payouts stabilise and a linear reward curve is rolled out.

Rules of delegating SP

There are several rules to delegating SP -

1. You cannot delegate SP that is being powered down. You can't power down delegated SP. You can, however, delegate a portion of your SP and power down the rest.
2. SP delegation works like a donation. The delegatee keeps all curation rewards.
3. Effectively, for votes made the delegatee, it would seem like they own the SP.
4. Delegators can cancel their delegations at any time, though it takes 7 days before they can use the SP themselves again.
5. You can only delegate SP you own, not SP delegated to you.

How to delegate SP

Currently, there's no easy frontend on Steemit.com or elsewhere to delegate SP. Probably isn't much of a priority for the Steemit team either, with Communities being the top focus right now. So, you'll either need to use a script or cli_wallet.

Linux

If you run Linux, you can download a cli_wallet I have uploaded here - http://wikisend.com/download/735872/cli_wallet.zip

1. Unzip, add executable permission chmod u+x cli_wallet

2. Run cli_wallet cli_wallet -s wss://steemd.steemit.com

   2b. Use set_password yourpassword to add a password.
   2c. unlock yourpassword. Once you see unlocked >>> you're all set to go.

3. Import active key. This will be your private active key, which you can copy from your Steemit.com wallet. import_key 5key

4. Verify that your account has been added by using list_my_accounts

5. Finally, delegate! delegate_vesting_shares youraccount delegateeaccount "xxxxx.xxxxxx VESTS" true (Tip: Copy paste the exact Vests from the list above to be sure the decimals and everything is correct. Of course, reduce as desired.)

6. Verify on Steemd.com.

Windows

@clayop (feat. @gtg) has created a brief guide about using a Docker image for Windows. Check it out! @clayop/til-using-cliwallet-on-windows-with-docker

NEW: There's an even easier way to run it if you use Windows 10. No need for Docker or VM - it'll run natively! More here - @liberosist/using-cliwallet-and-steemd-natively-in-windows-10

Once you have got cli_wallet running, Steps 3 to 6 will be the same as above with Linux.

Script

I haven't tried this method myself, but @inertia has a script for those who don't want to set up cli_wallet. Do check it out here - @inertia/gator-rb-steem-power-delegation-script-for-steem

Delegation vs following

Currently, there are many trails and bots following vote. Delegating SP differs in numerous ways. This table attempts to point out the many differences.

First published here

Feature	Streemian/following	Delegated SP
Who gets curation rewards?	Follower****	Curator
Delegate to multiple curators	Yes	Yes
Voting strength decided by*	Follower	Curator
Can delegate SP being powered down?	Yes	No
Can power down already delegated SP?	Yes	No
Follower can vote on other posts with delegated SP?	Yes	No
Delay between votes	Yes (bot speed)	No**
Time to cancel delegation	Immediate	7 days***

*Though the follower/delegator can choose to delegate a set amount of SP.
**It would be as if the SP was yours - your vote counts the delegated SP. So, yes, if a whale delegates to a minnow, a minnow might see their vote push up the pending payout by several dollars.
***The delegation is canceled immediately, but it'll be 7 days before you can use the SP to vote again.
****The curator also earns rewards from their own SP. However, follower gets to keep all rewards from the delegated SP, depending on the position of the vote. The curator does see increased curation rewards contributed from votes added by the follower, but limited by the SP they own. In the case of Delegated SP method, curator keeps all curation rewards directly, from SP they own + delegated to them.